A custodian at Madison High School filed a claim against a former administrator alleging she retaliated against him after he ended their relationship. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is currently investigating the complaint.
(Larry Bingham/The Oregonian)

Custodian Jamaal Winchester says that after the breakup in February, the former administrator, Liz Wilson, filed a restraining order against him. Winchester’s complaint says the restraining order, which was eventually dismissed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, prompted district officials to transfer him to another school.

BOLI is investigating the case, which was filed in June, according to spokesman Charlie Burr.

Kris Carrasco, the attorney who handled Wilson’s restraining order complaint, did not immediately return a request for comment.

In a statement, Portland Public Schools Chief Human Resources Officer Sean Murray said the district conducted a personnel investigation related to the situation and “addressed the matter appropriate to the circumstances with both employees at the conclusion of its investigations.”

“As this is a personnel matter, the district has no further information to provide at this time,” he wrote.

Winchester’s attorney, Jon Weiner, said Winchester believed it was unfair he was being punished for ending the relationship. He also said Portland Public Schools should have helped Winchester quickly resolve the issue.

“The district really aided and abetted that when the district had an opportunity to make everything right in a timely manner,” he said.

Weiner said Winchester will likely pursue a lawsuit unless the district settles.

The relationship

Winchester, who has worked for the district since 2010, said in his BOLI complaint that he and Wilson began a sexual relationship in January 2013. The following month, the district found out about the relationship. Winchester said Wilson met with the school principal, and both of them later met with the principal together. Soon after that meeting, Winchester “left Ms. Wilson’s house and returned to the mother of his children,” the complaint says.

In his complaint, Wilson repeatedly approached Winchester about the relationship through phone calls, text messages and in person. Winchester said Wilson gave him the impression that she could affect his employment at the school.

When he did not answer a call, the complaint alleges, Wilson left a voicemail for Winchester with a racial epithet.

Wilson and Winchester briefly took up the relationship once again. Then, in late February, he went to visit his children, and she followed him in a car, Winchester alleges in his complaint. After confronting her about following him, he moved out of her house, he says.

Wilson continued trying to make contact, including through messages on Twitter, he says in his complaint. He asked her to leave him alone and asked that they be “just friends,” the complaint says.

In March, Winchester and the mother of his children encountered Wilson and a friend at a restaurant.

Wilson, in her petition for a restraining order against Winchester, claimed that the custodian and his companion yelled at her and called her a home-wrecker. A judge granted the restraining order on March 4, court records show.

Days later, Winchester was transferred to another school and was given fewer work hours. He was later transferred to the Portland Public Schools administrative building.

The restraining order was dismissed on April 1, according to court records.

Winchester says even so, he was not allowed to return Madison until Aug. 26.

The custodian, who filed his sexual harassment complaint against the school district in June, also alleges the district delayed his return to Madison in retaliation for the initial BOLI complaint.

Wilson was later transferred to Marysville School, a Southeast Portland K-8 building, where she is now the vice principal.

Winchester said the district painted Wilson's transfer in a positive light, whereas he felt humiliated.

"The reason I was transferred was because I rejected Ms. Wilson's advances," he wrote in his filing with the state labor bureau. "She knew I needed overtime hours and knew I needed my job."